NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell takes questions during an NFL football news conference in New York last month. / Seth Wenig, AP

by Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY Sports

by Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA â?? Against a backdrop of decades of helmet-to-helmet hits in the NFL, legal arguments collided Tuesday as a federal judge heard arguments on a league motion to dismiss concussion-related suits filed by more than 4,000 ex-players.

"This day was long overdue," said former Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Bill Bergey, among the plaintiffs in more than 200 lawsuits filed around the country.

The lawsuits allege the NFL knowingly failed to protect players from concussions and fraudulently concealed potential long-terms effects such as depression and dementia.

The NFL denies the claims, but Tuesday's hearing wasn't about the specifics of the lawsuits. It was about a point of law that will decide whether the cases move forward and eventually go to jury trials.

"I will rule when I sort this whole thing out for myself," U.S. District Judge Anita Brody said after hearing about 50 minutes of arguments.

If the judge allows the cases to proceed (her ruling might come in June or July), that would open the door for legal filings for discovery and the taking of pretrial statements. Discovery could include such matters as requests for NFL injury data and other concussion-related documents.

"We will find out in discovery what they knew and what they did or didn't do about it," David Frederick, who represented the players, said after the hearing.

There was a power problem in the courthouse earlier Tuesday, so on a hot day in the seventh-floor courtroom, Brody opened by saying, "Off with the ties of jackets â?¦ I don't want anybody fainting."

Paul Clement, the former U.S. Solicitor General who represented the NFL, kept his jacket on. Frederick, also a veteran of many arguments before the Supreme Court, took his jacket off.

Clement argued that because issues of health and safety were covered by collective bargaining agreements with the players' union that the matter should be subject to grievance procedures and arbitration â?? not settled in court.

The NFL says Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations act prevents lawsuits that would require a judge to interpret provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. The NFL seeks "preemption" of the suits by the bargaining agreements.

"Here, the subject of the dispute â?? player health and safety issues â?? is mentioned throughout the agreements," argued Clement.

Frederick countered that the NFL's claim was "stratospheric" and that the judge does not even have to consider the CBAs. He said the NFL was bound by common law to safeguard the players and that it instead misled them.

"What the league is trying to do here is get immunity. That has nothing to do with the basic breach of duty that we're asserting here," said Frederick.

Frederick argued the collective bargaining agreements didn't address such issues as long-term effects of concussions. He said Section 301 should not apply and that the agreements don't address the players' allegations that the league spread misinformation about concussion.

Brody was even-handed in peppering both attorneys with questions. When and how she'll rule is uncertain. But she did press the NFL's Clement with multiple questions about "specificity."

The players' attorneys contend that for Section 301 to apply, there have to be questions that would require the judge to make interpretations about specific provisions in a bargaining agreement.

Brody, who became a federal judge in 1992 after being nominated by President George H.W. Bush, noted that Clement said provisions about health and safety were "all over" the past CBAs.

"Tell me specifically," said the judge. " â?¦ How am I supposed to know that it relates specifically?

At another point, she said, "That's a problem for me.''

Clement did not get into such specifics.

Outside the courtroom, Clement said care of players was a shared endeavor.

"The legal issue is, in order to make those claims, they would have to show that we violated a duty," said Clement.

"And the duty itself would have to consider what information other parties here had. Whatever you think about the league's information, this didn't happen in a vacuum. The players union had certain information, the teams had certain information, the trainers association and trainers had certain information."

When Frederick cited a past case he said supported the players' position that preemption should be rejected, Brody said, "There are a number of cases throughout the country that have gone the other way."

Brody, who noted that her grandson plays football, asked whether a high school players might also sue the NFL for allegedly spreading false information about concussions.

"Probably not because it would be extremely difficult to show proximate cause. â?¦ It's a totally different kind of issue," said Frederick.

Clement said that in such a case "any proximate connection is fanciful."

But the suits were filed by men who did play in the NFL. Nobody argued that they didn't have close connection to the league.

"The league breeched those duties (to protect them)," said Frederick.

Said Clement: "I don't think it's possible to assess the scope of that duty without examining the collective bargaining agreements."

Though the suits were filed around the country, they were consolidated in federal court, where a committee of attorneys for the players filed a master complaint.

The first of the federal suits was filed in Philadelphia in August of 2011 with former Atlanta Falcons defensive back Ray Easterling as the lead plaintiff. Easterling, who played for the Falcons in the 1970s, died last year of a self-inflicted gunshot. He had suffered from dementia.

Easterling's wife, Mary, was in the courtoom Tuesday.

"Ultimately, I think this trial is in God's hands, and he will do what he wants to do," she said.

Bergey, who played in the NFL from 1969 to 1980, said he sustained three "real, real bad concussions" during his career. He said the first occurred when he was with Cincinnati in 1969.

"I threw up green. It was just green," said Bergey. "And my roommate before I got married, Guy Dennis (former Bengals lineman) â?¦ I begged him to go out at two o'clock in the morning and get me some aspirin. I took eight aspirin, woke up the next morning, went to practice because I was expected to be at practice."

Though he is a plaintiff, Bergey said he has suffered no long terms effects so far.

"I don't think that it had an impact on me because my head was a little harder that probably the average football player's," he said.

But in addition to monetary damages, the suits also seek the establishment of an NFL-funded, court-supervised medical monitoring system for former players who might be suffering long-term effects from concussions.

"To be honest with you, if I wake up tomorrow morning as a drooling vegetable I expect to have somebody help. And I don't expect my wife to be there wiping my chin," Bergey said.

If he was a teenager just starting out his football career and he sustained concussions, would Bergey consider playing in the NFL?

"I don't know," he said. "In hindsight, I don't know. But I do know one thing. I've got two replaced knees, I've been operated on both shoulders, I blew out an elbow. With those I would play pro football again in a New York second. The concussion thing, I can't answer that right now."